Cow

This sculpture depicts a lively camel with two humps. Like the horse, the camel was perhaps an even more potent symbol of commerce, exchange, and travel between China and the many kingdoms and cultures across the northwest deserts of Asia during the Tang dynasty (618–907). All kinds of raw materials and export goods—like silks, spices, ceramics—were carried across the continent on the backs of camels and via caravans along the so-called Silk Roads. While this camel was made for a tomb and therefore did not literally travel, it embodies the kinds of exchanges that characterized life during the Tang dynasty.